Cape Fear (1962)

A TRULY TERRIFYING MOVIE

I saw this movie on TV as a child and was truly terrified by Robert Mitchum. He is an actor who was able to scare me without buckets of blood, profanity and other tactics that todays actors use.

The most frightening scene, I thought, was the scene when Mitchum drowns the deputy, Kersek, in the river. The music was a factor in the chilling scene as well. As a kid, I thought this was terrifying and still do.

In the 1991 remake, Kersek is strangled with a piano wire with lots of gore. I don't know why a remake was made when the original can't be duplicated. Instead of a remake, a sequal should have been made.

Robert Mitchum is great in this movie. October 2, 2008

Keeps you on the edge of your seat...

This movie scared me to death the first time I saw it. I could hardly keep my eyes on the screen at the end! Robert Mitchum gave me chills throughout! I never looked at him the same way in anything else. It sounds rediculous with all of todays new ways to make things scary that this should effect me so much but it really does. It's a classic and it's great! It's one of those thrillers you can watch again and again and even on your 10th time you're on the edge of your seat! June 2, 2008

"You have to know him to feel the threat..."

J. Lee Thompson's 1962 version of Cape Fear may not be a masterpiece, but in everyway it's a superior thriller to Martin Scorsese's horribly misjudged remake. More surprisingly, it's also much nastier even with the heavier censorship of the day - Robert Mitchum's treatment of Polly Bergen in the last reel is startlingly violent and disturbing even now and its still shocking to see an early 60s film that revolves around sex crimes. There's no doubt exactly what's on Mitchum's mind, whether he's eyeing up a pickup in a bar or breaking an egg in his fist and smearing the yolk over the mother's shoulders and neck: like a lazy reptile waiting to casually catch a fly with his tongue, he merely has to look at Gregory Peck's underage daughter to exude menace. Where the remake offered a dysfunctional family forced to come together, the original offers something much more anarchic, as Gregory Peck's Mr Civil Liberties gradually comes to realize that the only way to protect his All-American family from Mitchum's strutting lizard-like vengeful ex-con is play dirty himself and plan his murder using his own daughter as bait. He may be playing another small-town southern lawyer, but he's is as far way from Atticus Finch as Mitchum's seedy, cocky but thoroughly self-aware Max Cady is from his self-deluding self-righteous `preacher' Harry Powell.

While Mitchum and Peck occupy centre-stage, James Webb's tight script ensures the supporting cast make a strong impression too as they usher Peck further down the path to murder: Martin Balsam's sympathetic police chief who'll bend the law a little to harass an ex-con for a solid citizen, Telly Savalas (with hair) as a pragmatic private eye who is not above calling in as little help from the wrong side of tracks and Jack Kruschen, not playing Jewish for a change, as Cady's mouthpiece who knows just how to use the law to protect the guilty. Aided immensely by Samuel Leavitt's menacing black and white photography and Bernard Herrmann's dramatically sinister score, Thompson's direction is right on target throughout: he may not have been one of the great directors, but he knew how to tell a story without losing the characters along the way, and he's at the top of his game here. It may not be quite a classic, but it is a strikingly effective thriller, albeit an undeniably nasty one.

Unusually for a film of the period, this boasts a surprisingly excellent DVD, with a good widescreen black and white transfer and plenty of extras, from a half hour documentary (though sadly only Thompson and Peck contribute, with Mitchum notably absent), production notes, a well-designed stills montage and the original theatrical trailer.
April 28, 2008

Fear Indeed. . .

This is the original 1962 "Cape Fear", superbly directed by J. Lee Thompson and produced by Gregory Peck - not to be confused with the mess of a remake attempted in the early 1990s by Martin Scorsese. The film is based on a story called "The Executioners" by John D. MacDonald (the "Travis McGee" series) and is rooted in the film noir tradition of the 1940s and 1950s. It was shot in black and white, which enhanced its noirish atmosphere of foreboding.

"Cape Fear" is the story of a public prosecutor in Savannah named Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) whose family is threatened by a violent sociopath newly released from prison. The sociopath, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum), is bent on revenging himself on Bowden, who helped to convict him. Bowden soon finds that the law in which he has always placed so much faith cannot protect his family from Cady's carefully escalated persecutions, which can't be proven strongly enough to stand up in court and get Cady sent back to prison. The film revolves around Bowden's increasingly desperate attempts to protect his wife and young daughter from Cady, and the challenges those attempts present to Bowden's principles. Inevitably, Bowden's family ends up serving as bait with which to trap Cady. The conclusion of the film is as disturbing a half hour as any that has ever appeared onscreen.

The terse, no-frills script uncoils like a whip, and is enhanced by the now famous, menacing score by Bernard Herrmann (which was used again in the remake). There are no red herrings like the ones Scorsese inserted into the remake, to overfreight an overwhelmingly simple narrative issue (nice folks menaced by sociopath) to whose outcome those red herrings were inherently meaningless.

The core of the film (although this was not the intent of the original script) is Robert Mitchum's Max Cady, probably the best performance of his career. Mitchum, barely into his early forties, was still a leading man in his own right, and certainly not short on erotic appeal. Yet he subdued his distinctive magnetism and rechanneled it into a horrifying characterization that no one who sees it ever forgets. The inherent evil that Robert DeNiro needed a large assortment of tattoos, greasy hair, bizarre clothing, bwahaha affect, wild eyes, bulked up muscles, and oversized cigars to project, Mitchum projected just by the swing of his shoulders, his lazily inflected voice, and a rakishly tilted Panama hat. It all came from inside, in a terrifying performance that lands on every list of Best Hollywood Villains Ever.

Gregory Peck actually considered playing Cady himself, but decided (correctly, I think) that the public would never find him believable in such a role. Peck gives a heartfelt performance as the lawyer crazed with fear for his family, but even his stature, expert pacing, and star quality are no match for Mitchum's bone-chilling Cady. Polly Bergen plays Bowden's attractive and supportive wife, and Lori Martin, who looked a bit like a young Elizabeth Taylor at the time, plays the just-blossoming daughter for whom Cady has particular plans as he plots his revenge on Bowden. While he nurtures those plans, Cady finds time to pick up a worldweary girl (played by dancer-actress Barrie Chase) in a local bar and beat her up. Chase is quietly intense in her brief appearance as the shopworn girl who goes in for a bit of slumming and pays harshly for it. Her refusal to testify against Cady deprives Bowden of an opportunity to put Cady back in prison, and is instrumental in reducing Bowden to extreme measures.

There has occasionally been some doubt cast on what actually happened to Bowden's wife on the boat where he has hidden her for safety, in the area of the Carolina swampwaters called "Cape Fear" (hence the film's title). This reviewer does not think there can be any doubt about what happened to her. In later interviews, Bergen has recounted how, during the filming of this scene (allegedly done in one improvised take), Mitchum was so deeply "in character" that he lost control of himself and broke down part of a door as he pushed Bergen into the back room, and failed to respond to the director's repeated calls of "Cut!". When he finally snapped out of it and pulled away from her, a shaken Bergen broke down and cried. (Mitchum, lest anyone think this was art imitating life, rather than true art, was immediately overcome with remorse.)

Lori Martin, as Nancy, only had two segments in the film where she had to interact directly with Cady. Yet, she said later, these two scenes gave her nightmares for weeks afterward.

These recollections demonstrate how powerfully Mitchum inhabited this role, and why, in the end, his performance owns the film. The film is certainly excellent on its own merits, but Mitchum's performance has contributed mightily to its status. Gregory Peck, a consummate gentleman, made no bones about it afteward: "It's Bob's picture."

If I had to quibble with one aspect of the film, it might be Peck's picture-perfect family (Bergen, despite the southern summer heat, never appears without pearls, gloves, a dress, and high heels), which stands in somewhat overstated contrast to Cady's sleazy sociopath. However, it's a small quibble.

This is not a deep or important film, but it is a first-rate one. It stands, in relationship to the remake, as an object lesson on how often, in art, less is more. The purpose of a suspense film is to frighten the viewer witless and make him/her horribly uncomfortable. Thompson's "Cape Fear" delivers 100% on its fundamental purpose, as well as offering up one of filmdom's most legendary villains.

Highly recommended for all devotees of this genre. Women are advised not to watch it alone, and do make sure the kids are asleep before you run it. January 23, 2008

Good triumphs over evil

Cape Fear is a gripping thriller that builds to a terrifying climax. The feeling of palpable fear is introduced from the outset and builds to a gripping ending. A man and his family live in fear of a loser bent on revenge. It seems nothing will stop this personification of evil. He is cold and calculating and determined. There seems to be no way out of tragedy at every turn. Innocence is like blood in the water. There is little hope until the end when the stalker slips up and allows his prey to defend himself and his family. A top-notch thriller. November 11, 2007

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